The Dynamic Trio - Blog

Since TJ was talking about football yesterday I thought I’d continue the theme New Zealand style. We play rugby down this end of the world - live and breathe the game. At the moment the Rugby World Cup is taking place in France. Teams from all over the world, including the US (yes, you have a team!) are playing to find the current champion. I’m so jealous - my EC editor is in France watching several of the games. I can’t wait to hear all about it on her return.

At the start of each game the All Blacks (NZ team) do a haka, which is essentially a Maori challenge to their opponents. Other teams from the Pacific also do their own version of the haka and when two teams issue challenges at the same time it’s electrifying.

Here’s a version of the haka when we played Tonga.

And here’s another when we played South Africa - a slightly different version of the haka. It caused a controversy here in NZ at the time because of the final throat slitting action.

And finally if you’d like a taste of what rugby is like check out my EC Quickie Issy’s Infatuation or my upcoming romantic suspense Playing to Win coming from Cerridwen Press.

for some foozball? I mean, football!

It’s football season (the American version) and I just love this time of year. My son has played wide receiver for the past several years, and this year he’s playing safety and corner on defense. It’s different for him, but he did make the varsity squad…and he’s not even 16 yet! What can I say? Da kid’s got skillz!

Then I got to thinking about the game…and into my head popped “Mama” from the Adam Sandler movie “The Waterboy.” That southern accent when she says, “You playin’ da foozball, Bobby Bouchier?” My kids had to practically hog tie me to get me to watch that movie because I figured it would be soooo stupid. But it was so damned funny, and now it’s one of my favorites.

So is “The Replacements” with Mr. Non-Acting Keanu Reaves. It’s a hilarious football movie! I think Keanu did a better job in this one movie than he did in the whole Matrix franchise. Lord knows he had more lines in the football movie! Plus the supporting cast is AWESOME!

Are you a football fan? If so, you have any favorite football moveis?

Here’s a little look at conflict resolution in The Waterboy!

So it’s Saturday and I spent several hours today writing, most likely I’ll be finishing To Do List by the end of the weekend so yay for that! Right now the kids are playing Sly on the PS2 and I’m sort of thinking about dinner. I need to deal with laundry, sigh - GLAMOROUS!! Wheee!

A quote I saw today and wanted to pass along:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
George Bernard Shaw

In other words, sit your ass down and write. Even if it’s five minutes every two days. Stop making excuses. Stop saying how you don’t have time, stop bemoaning other people who have all day to write or who have better deals than you. You will never be anyone but you, so deal with what YOU have instead of what you haven’t.

And while I’m at it, I’m just going to heave a tired sigh and say some authors need to stop showing their ass in public. Really truly. Your blog is public. Author loops are public, comments you make at blogs are public. Guess who is part of the public? Editors, your fellow authors, readers, reviewers and agents. So you got rejected. Doood, welcome to the club. Guess who else got rejected? EVERYONE.

Another quote:

Don’t fear making a mistake; fear failing to learn and move forward.
Pilip Humbert

You put yourself out there, you open yourself up and it’s difficult. People who don’t do it tend to pooh pooh how hard it is, but those who’ve done it understand. Those who survive? They know your skin better be thick and you have to want this more than anything because it’s not easy. It hurts. You feel intense hope and gutwrenching, abject fear and disappointment. Sometimes within hours of each other. There are times when you are sure you won’t make it. When the story you’re writing is drek, when you can’t pull off the edits, when you fear readers will hate the book you’re putting in front of them. And sometimes, the story you’re writing IS drek, sometimes those edits take longer than you thought and yep, sometimes readers don’t connect with what you tried to say. Writers who sell right away and never hit a bump are very rare. Yes, they exist but most of us have hit delays hard enough to consider quitting.

But do you want it? If so, how bad? You gotta work. No doubt about it. You have to write when you’re exhausted, when you just don’t want to write that damned story, when you hate your characters, when your kids’ teacher has a talk with you when you pick him up, when you’ve had a fight with your spouse or your best friend. You have to deal with people all around you getting deals when you get rejected and also, getting deals when your friends who are terrific writers don’t.

Pull up your big girl panties, stuff some chocolate in your gullet and write because if that’s what you want to be, that’s what you’ve got to do. When it works, it’s the best thing in the world.

Well, the holiday is over and two weeks in Hawaii raced by in a blink. Mr. Munro and I had the best time sunning ourselves and soaking up the warmth. I need to apologise since I forgot to post before I left. It was on my list but I managed to miss a few things. Just call me unorganized this trip!

We did a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands and spent several nights in Waikiki as well. Highlights for me were the beautiful scenery - both lush green and incredibly dry because each island has a wet and a dry side, visiting a seahorse farm and holding a seahorse, going to a gun range and doing some shooting, swimming and snorkelling, visiting the volcanoes and going on a submarine. Oh, and seeing turtles swimming about the place.

It was our 25th wedding anniversary while we were away. Mr. Munro sneakily purchased a ring and matching earrings for me and hid them. He said I was always going into the suitcase and he worried I’d find them, but I was oblivious. Didn’t suspect a thing. He gave me the earrings and put the ring in my glass of wine when I went to the restroom. Once again, oblivious, I didn’t find it straightaway. I think he thought I’d swallow it before I noticed. He’s so funny. After twenty-five years he still makes me laugh

Today we’re off to visit my father to collect our wee dog. Evidently she’s been her usual naughty self. I think my father will breathe a sigh of relief and probably crack open the bottle of bourbon we’ve bought for him. He likes to give her back to us!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. What are you up to? Are you doing anything exciting?

I’ve been in meetings ALL morning at the day job. One of them was actually pretty good because we saw a demo of a new software release that our company is working on.

Usually I don’t care for meetings. Why? Because I don’t see the point of having a meeting just to discuss when to schedule the next meeting. Or to sit around and joke when I could be doing something else.

Which leads me to my next point - finding time to do NOTHING. My kids say I don’t do this enough. They claim that I absolutely must be aware of how to use every minute of every day being efficient with my time, which usually means stuffiing as many tasks as possible into a day.

They’re suggestion is to learn how to do nothing. Learn how to just take a moment, catch my breath, and…well, breathe *chuckle* rather than finding something to stuff into that extra few minutes.

I think they’ve got a point. As a matter of fact, this evening when I get home, I’m going to have dinner, have a little family time, get some word count in…then I’m going to enjoy a book I’ve been wanting to finish FOREVER. Then again, maybe I’ll just veg instead…?

At the end of your day, do you find yourself still trying to fit in “just one more thing?” If so, maybe we should form a 12-step club for it or something! :D

Yes, it’s that day of the week again and there are new excerpts at my messageboard for Reading Between the Lines (my October release from Samhain) and something from Vengeance Due as well! In happy news, Vengeance Due is now out in paper and you can grab it with free shipping from the EC print store!

More good news: two new contracts! One from Samhain for a contemporary erotic romance called To Do List and it’ll be out in December and has a holiday setting. The other called Celebration For The Dead, which is a spin off of my Witches Knot world featuring hunter Minx Rodriguez and Oathkeeper Connor Bell from Ellora’s Cave due out most likely next year sometime. You met Minx and Connor in Vengeance Due.

And Chased is now up for pre-order at Barnes and Noble!

Lots of truly fabulous stuff - SO - I’m doing TWO contests (and I’ll even tell you about a third one!)

First of all, I’m going to give you all a week and choose TWO winners at random from the responses to this entry - one will win an ARC of Michelle Pillow’s really excellent ALONG FOR THE RIDE, her October release from Cheek and the second book in her Matthews sisters series (you all need to also read Bit By The Bug, the first book - it’s fab!)

The other winner will receive a copy of any of my available titles in whatever format they’re available in (including my paperbacks!)

All you need to do is post an answer to this question: What are the three best books you’ve read in the last year (including the last half of 2006). See? Easy peasy!!

I’ll draw the winners next Tuesday the 18th of September!!

Another contest? Don’t mind if I do! Megan Hart is running a contest and the winner gets all sorts of goodies including a 100 dollar GC to Amazon! Go to her website to check the details!!

Hey, what a great Tuesday! Y’all enjoy your day!

Lauren got me! This is a pretty cool meme. Short enough to actually have fun with! I’m supposed to tag give folks…let me think about that a minute. In the meantime…

Total Number of Books I Own?
Are you serious? It would take me a week to count just the ones that aren’t boxed up in the basement! Then all the electronic ones I have…geesh, I have no idea. I do currently have about 100 on my eBookwise, but I’m too lazy to count how many I actually own that aren’t on the thing.

Last Book I Bought:
Mystic’s Run by Jory Strong. Another I’ve been waiting on in the Angelini series. It’s been a LONG time in coming but I’m still going to read it. Usually if a series takes this long (it’s been two years since the last book) for another book in a series I just give up. But I decided to hang in there with this one and see how it wraps up.

Last Book I Read:
Fire and Rain by Lauren Dane. Okay, woman, waiting on the next one! I wanna know what’s going to happen to Phillip and Skye and the rest of them there Cherchez boys!

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:
Boy, that’s a tough one, but I’ll give it a whirl.

1) Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog - As a Lakota female it’s important to me to learn of my heritage. This book is not an easy read in that it makes me somewhat angry to learn of some of the things that happened to Native Americans during the 60’s in a first hand account. On the other hand, it also shows how far we’ve come.

2) Golden Surrender by Heather Graham was the first romance novel I’d actually read back in 1989. It was this book that made me even contemplate writing a romance novel of my own. I still have that book and haven’t submitted it anywhere. This year that will change.

3) The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein - My mom bought me the series when I was a kid, probably about fifteen years old. I devoured it and have loved fantasy-fiction ever since. To this day, though my mom is long gone, I still have the series on my bookshelf.

4) Please Understand Me (can’t remeber the author) - I was introduced to this book while in a psychological nightmare of a relationship. This book was my first experience with the Myers/Briggs test on personality types and certainly revealed the fact that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH ME! Woohoo! I also began to learn to allow poeple to simply be who they are as well as stopped allowing others to dictate who I should be. I LOVE THIS BOOK!

5) Woman Thou Art Loosed by T.D. Jakes - After getting married, planning children, just to end up divorced this book helped me to see what a gift I truly am. We don’t have to allow anyone to put dents in our self esteem. As women, we are simply fabulous! Givers, lovers, nurturers, strong, beautiful…wow!

For my five folks, I’m gonna pick some readers! Let’s see - how ’bout Pamk, Caity_Mack, Linda (readingissomuch…) and a couple of authors…Mary Winter and NJ Walters. And anyone else who wants to tell their business! LOL!

The supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Ann Aguirre tagged me on this meme:

Total number of books I own:
I couldn’t begin to say! I have boxes in the garage, piles in my bedroom and bookcases everwhere - I’d say it numbers in the thousands at this point and I’m not counting my ebooks which would be another two hundred or so.

Last Book I bought:

Michelle Pillow’s Fierce Competition

Last Book I read:

Anne Stuart’s The Devil’s Waltz

Five books that mean a lot to me:

1. Vaclav Havel’s Living In Truth - a collection of essays that I turn to often when I need inspiration or to feel hope and strength.

2. Frank Herbert’s Dune - the first science fiction book I read at my husband’s urging (back when we were 18) and I’ve read it probably a dozen times since and it still amazes me every time. The scope of Herbert’s universe is thrilling and awesome.

3. William Gibson’s Neuromancer - I’m just in awe of Gibson’s skills as a writer. His imagination makes me weep and the way he can write so close to the bone and still give the reader an epic story is, IMO unparalleled.

4. Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome To Temptation - I think WTT is one of those romance novels that’s the perfect balance. It all works together. Great characters; funny, witty dialog; extraordinary sexual chemistry; a town that’s a character; and a story that’s quirky without being ridiculous. I often just pick it up when I need to remember how great romance can be. Just a few passages at random do the trick.

5. Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising - I can still remember reading this book for the first time. My dad was taking night classes at a community college and he’d often take me with him to the library where I’d find something suitable to read and immerse myself while he did his thing. I stumbled upon a used copy of The Dark Is Rising for something like a dime or a quarter at the library sale and I read it in two hours. I was twelve. I’ve read it multiple times since and that original copy, well used even then, has sadly given up the ghost and I recently purchased the whole series to give my oldest for his birthday so we can share it. It’s got all the great themes - valor, justice, honor - good against evil, etc. It still holds up today.

Tag 5 people:
Let’s see - TJ and Shelley of course, and anyone else who comes across this and wants to do it, it’s a really fun meme!

As in “oh baby!”

I have a frickin’ migraine headache and the drugs I take for it makes me really loopy. But that’s not why I’m having all kinds of kinky thoughts of hunky love running through my brain.

I’m reading Lauren’s FIRE AND RAIN…and man, it’s good. I’ve just started on it and I’m already in love with the characters. Well, actually, I fell in love with the Cherchez pack guys in ASCENSION, but this book about the character we met before, named Laurent, is just way cool.

This is what a book is supposed to be - to take you way in fantasy, make you FEEL the characters and wish for what they have.

Hey…Lauren, Laurent. Lauren, Laurent? Do I detect a pattern here?

Also, I just finished a TALONS book about gorgeous-licious falcon shifters by Michelle Pillow, released last year (I think) by Samhain Publishing. Twas excellent.

What’s everyone else reading right now?

I’ve got a book coming out on Wednesday! This is the follow up to Ascension and is Laurent and Rain’s story…

Rain Foster works as a waitress while working hard to make her career take off. Her paintings are the center of her life until Laurent Cole walks into the cafe. Suddenly she’s dealing with a very alpha male pursuing her and the not so very tiny detail that he’s a werewolf too.

Laurent Cole has been the Third in Command in the Cherchez Wolf Pack for decades. His life is simple, good - but he knows he’s missing something and when he claps eyes on Rain, he knows what it is.

Their coming together is complicated further by the past Rain has worked so hard to keep a secret. Laurent isn’t about to let anyone do his wife any harm and Rain begins to believe Laurent and her new family will keep her safe.

But the world becomes more complicated every day…

Oh and I’m running a contest to win an ARC over at the Ladies of the Club Blog!

Excerpt Behind The Cut - 18 and Over Only!

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